agitcorp

This guy is a moron on so many levels it just boggles the mind.

I wonder if he sends mail merge thank you notes to his hookers?

Below is some video of a trade show booth we designed for one of our clients. It was a cool project. We got to do everything from the design of the cabinetry to the selection of the furniture to the production of the video content to the design of the printed materials.

Mostly, I’m just testing out Vimeo for video publishing but I figured why not leave this here? Can’t hurt can it?

From the 2008 Breakbulk convention in New Orleans, Louisiana.

WDSU TV did a nice story on Stay Local!

Definitely worth a watch. More proof to believe in your own ideas. Can’t tell you how many business people and local politicians just couldn’t grasp this concept back in 2003.

Congratulations to David and Dana and everyone at Stay Local!

I’ve wanted to post something recently about the Monday night pickin’ party at the Hi Ho Lounge. We’ve been doing it every Monday now for well over two years. I’ve met and played with some great people and it has created its own little community of players and regulars. It has helped me hone my skill as a player but more importantly it is just a fun and comfortable place to play music and shoot the shit with friends.

Each week it happens and each week I’m still surprised that people show up. Who would have thought? Bluegrass and Country music on St. Claude Ave?

But each time I think about writing about it, I feel as though I can’t quite capture the feel. So I was pretty happy when Ian McNulty wrote this piece about it. I think he captured the quirky improbability of the whole adventure.

Thanks Ian!

I’ve been working on my slide playing lately and have been fascinated by all the mystery and folklore associated with slide guitar. The choice of a slide seems to be one of those things that brings out the curiosity, the experimentation, and the tinkerer in all sorts of people.

Get people talking about their slide and you quickly find yourself in arcane discussions of metal vs. glass, copper vs. steel, wine bottles vs. medicine bottles, store bought vs. old craftsman socket wrenches.

All the discussions got me wanting to try out various sizes, shapes, and materials of slides. Only problem is, there doesn’t seem to be any good local outlets for them. It makes sense, I guess. We are talking about a category of good that generally sells for $5 to $20 (generally — they can be MUCH more expensive!), has hundreds of permutations and variations, and very few people will walk in to your store and buy one in any given month. So everyone seems to stock the same few middle-of-the-road options.

Of course, there is always the internet. But given the very personal nature of the quest you can go through a lot of options before finding that right fit. And since — so far — there is no Zappo’s for guitar slides — you order it, you keep it.

So today I dug through our mound of recycling looking for glass bottles that might be converted into slides. New Orleans is no longer picking up glass and K doesn’t want to throw it out so I had a pretty good selection to choose from.

After some internet research — again countless methods for separating wine bottle necks from their bottles — I got ready to try the most promising options. I started using a method of scoring the neck with a glass cutter and then running hot water on the score, shifting to cold water and then tapping the neck to break the score. This method didn’t work for me.

The successful method involved scoring the neck, then rotating the scored neck above a candle flame until sooty all the way around. At that point, you put the bottle under cold water and it pretty much snaps right then. While this method works fast and easy, the results are still what you might expect. The break is simultaneously amazingly crisp and clean and still more jagged than you would like. I don’t know if this can be improved with technique. Or do you just do enough bottles until one breaks perfect?

After the break, I used the dremel tool to ease the edges to make sure there were no sharp points. And voila! My first glass slides.